By means of an Adobe Phonegap account (https://build.phonegap.com/apps) I could create mobile apps using my web application for all types of mobile platforms like IOS, Android, Windows. But, for this to happen, I have to upload my project zip to cloud.
Is it possible to create the apps (for all mobile platforms) offline, in my pc itself, without uploading my project zip to cloud? Is there any desktop application that does a similar job as build.phonegap.com?
Yes you can build your app locally and offline.
BUT you should keep in mind that you have to use IDEs for that.
For android you can use Eclipse or Android studio on MacOs or Windows.
For ios you have to use xCode and MacOs.
Pros and cons of locally environment:
pros:
cons:
You can read about different platforms: http://docs.phonegap.com/en/4.0.0/guide_platforms_index.md.html#Platform%20Guides
If the question is "Can I build locally a phonegap/cordova app for IOS, android or windows phone on a Windows PC", the answer is unfortunatly no.
To build a app for a platform you need to install the sdk for that platform.
What that means is that :
By the way, even if you are using phonegap build, you can't publish ios apps if you don't have a mac.
you can definitely build app offline. I've worked on phonegap for android and I've successfully build and generated .apk file got for android.
you should have ANT environvement setup in-order to build.
for example:
try to execute this line inside the folder of your application path in the command prompt and check what are the requirements that your system need in-order to build the required app